Devastating Great Freeze Of 1894-95 Put Squeeze On New Citrus Industry

FLASHBACK - ORANGE COUNTY HISTORY

December 25, 1994|By Mark Andrews of The Sentinel Staff

One hundred years ago this week, the first round of the most devastating one-two punch ever to hit Orange County's citrus industry flattened growers.

What came to be known as the Great Freeze destroyed Florida's citrus crop in the winter of 1894-95 and killed more than 90 percent of Orange County's fruit trees. It would take 15 years for the industry to recover to the point that the county could ship as much citrus as it had before the freeze.

The Great Freeze - which actually was two freezes on Dec. 29, 1894, and Feb. 7, 1895 - was the most dramatic and devastating blow to Orange County's namesake industry, which has endured numerous ups and downs over the past 130 years.

The county's first settlers found wild oranges growing among the pine forests. These trees probably were planted by Seminoles and even earlier groups of natives, who obtained seeds from sour oranges brought to Florida by the Spanish in the 16th century.

Many early settlers cultivated oranges, eventually breeding sweeter varieties. The industry did not take off on a large scale until 1880, when the arrival of Orange County's first railroad enabled growers to ship their produce to market faster and more easily.

Hundreds of settlers were lured here by the promise of prosperity from growing oranges. Articles in Northern newspapers and magazines written by Orange County newcomers such as George Newell and Will Wallace Harney told how people of modest means could prosper from just a few acres of citrus - if they could afford to wait five to seven years for seedlings to bear fruit.

Those dreams came crashing down during back-to-back freezes in the cruel winter of 1894-95.

The days leading up to the first of the twin freezes gave no indication of the disaster that was to come. Christmas Day 1894 was sunny and beautiful with temperatures in the 80s. Three days later, a cold front from the northwest pushed a strong rainstorm with high winds through the area.

By the next morning, Dec. 29, ''cold had settled in to a point where pumps were frozen, water pipes began to burst, foliage blackened and died,'' Eve Bacon wrote in Orlando: A Centennial History. The temperature dropped to 24 degrees, killing the season's entire citrus crop while most of it still hung on the trees.

Karl Abbott, who was a youth at the time of the freeze, later recorded his recollections of citrus growers and buyers gathering in the lobby of the San Juan Hotel, which his parents ran, as the temperature dropped on the day of the first freeze:

''By 2 p.m., the San Juan was in an uproar. Prices had dropped to 'no sale.' Commission merchants were frantically trying to get out of options, and heated debates and fistfights started in the lobby,'' Bacon reported from Abbott's memoirs.

''About 9 that night, a fine looking gray-haired man in a black frock coat and Stetson hat walked up the street in front of the hotel and looked at the thermometer, groaned, 'Oh, my God!' and shot himself through the head.''

Abbott continued, ''For three days the icy winds blew over a dead world. The gloom in the San Juan was something you could feel and touch.''

It was Florida's worst freeze since 1835, historians say, and by far the worst in the generation during which citrus had been cultivated here on a large scale. A number of mom-and-pop growers, who had come to Orange County and invested all their savings in groves, moved back North in discouragement. Most, however, dug in their heels and hoped the next year would be better.

But just six weeks later, it would only get worse.

During a January that brought warm, wet weather, trees produced new growth. The layer of woody tissue just under the bark filled with sap as the wounded trees struggled to recover. The presence of so much liquid in the trees made them far more vulnerable to a second freeze.

When the temperature dropped to 17 degrees on Feb. 7, more than 90 percent of the fruit trees were killed, although some with large root systems would survive once the dead wood was cut away. Witnesses said they heard what sounded like pistol shots when the sap froze and blew out the tree bark.

Land values plummeted, and growers with mortgages were forced to sell at a loss. Because it took several years for new trees to mature and bear fruit, people with money were able to scoop up large tracts at bargain prices from those who could not afford to wait.

The freeze had cascading effects on the rest of Orange County's economic landscape.

Peter Herdic gave up the Orlando water company he owned, leaving it in the hands of attorney John M. Cheney, who represented the stockholders. The waterworks remained shut down until Cheney emerged as the major stockholder after some legal maneuvering and reopened it in 1897.

The twin freezes dealt a much more devastating blow to the county's economy than did the three crippling frosts of the 1980s because there was little diversification beyond agriculture back then, and citrus was the dominant crop. The citrus industry in the late 19th century was comprised mostly of individual growers who had small groves. They spread from Oakland and Winter Garden east to Christmas and from Sanford south to Pine Castle, Conway and Windermere.

Of the eight banks in the county before the Great Freeze, only the First National Bank of Sanford survived. Many stores and packinghouses also closed. Some growers diversified into winter vegetables, while others explored new kinds of commerce.

Never again would Orange County be so reliant on one industry for its survival.

Next week, growers recover from the freeze and make new strides in the 20th century.